Zenos sat on a pile of fallen automatons. His hands were folded over the pommel of his downturned sword, its blade stuck through the dirt. He had closed his eyes and relaxed his shoulders, and rested his forehead against the back of his hand. The forest was quiet, but for the chirp of song birds, and the haunting whistle of distant dwarf statues.
All around were hunks of bronze and scattered mithril thread that glinted in the evening light. Zenos had defeated 31 automatons and a pile of turbid amethyst gems rested between his feet. They glowed in disharmony, shining every so often to their own rhythm. No treasure chest had appeared.
What should I tell Mad? Zenos wondered. He’d be surprised, wouldn’t he? Yeah, he’d definitely be surprised. If I take these gems to him, he’ll ask how I did it. It would be difficult to explain, without revealing the player system.
[Fourteen level ups are waiting for you] a blinking alert read in the dark behind his eyes.That many level ups will double my power. Would that be enough?
Zenos straightened up, opened his bestial eyes. The player menu opened ahead of him. He first checked the proficiency menu. [Sword (one-hand)] had raised from 40 to 46 and [Sword (two-hand)] had also increased from 45 to 49. He had increased both proficiencies by switching forms—his method of fighting—throughout the battle. After confirming the change, he switched to his character menu and allocated his level up points. His new stat total was as follows:
[Strength: 900] [Constitution: 1000] [Intelligence: 100] [Agility: 800] [Charisma: 100] [Spirit: 100]He focused on the increased agility stat. Once I figured out their pattern, fighting the automatons one on one was very simple. However, multiply those moving arms by ten, and I have difficulty avoiding simultaneous attacks. Agility is more abstract than the other stats, there’s no health meter or damage value to compare it to, but it should make combat easier.
Zenos stood from the automaton heap and placed the silver sword back in his inventory; it disappeared into its holographic interface. He flexed his right arm and swung it in a wide circle as he observed his increased constitution and strength. Motion of the arm was much faster, a likely benefit of his higher agility. In fact, all motion had been accelerated enough to notice. The turn of his head was snappier and even the contraction of his pupils was more responsive.
This sort of change could take an NPC a year to achieve, he thought. I can’t underestimate the player system.
Zenos scooped the gems up from the ground and placed them in his inventory. Only a small handful of three were kept on hand for delivery. They found a place in his coat pocket after he slipped its gray sleeves over his arms.
Before he left, he stopped to turn half back to the valley. The automatons had been devastated and from where he stood at the trail head, he couldn’t spot a moving one among them. Zenos made a respectful nod toward the valley and carried on up the hill.
Night had fallen by the time Zenos returned, but the fire was out. Mad was nowhere to be seen. The whistle of the surrounding statues continued in their discordant chorus.
“Mad?” Zenos called into the dark.
There was no reply.
He frowned, but shrugged his shoulders, and started carrying logs to the fire. Although Zenos had no spells, he still knew a few tricks to starting a fire by hand. He could thank the demon lord, Destrey, for the odd survival lesson and kernel of wisdom he would share on campaign.
It still took an hour to start the fire.
An exhausted Zenos sat close to the nascent flame and he warmed his hands by its glow. The stars were out, but Mad still hadn’t returned. Zenos was feeling a little hungry. The ingredients for stew were nearby, stored in Mad’s backpack and boxes beside his tent. Curiously, Mad had left his backpack at camp.
Zenos disregarded that thought and fixated on food. A good stew required potatoes, carrots, onions, dried beef, water for boiling, and seasonings. He kept that in mind as he searched for those ingredients. There was a pail that still had some clean water, the vegetables were readily available, and the seasonings were in his backpack with paper-wrapped packets of beef.
“There’s no knife here,” he said.
It occurred to him that Mad had just the one knife, but that he had made stew without it after Zenos lost it the first time. Unless he used magic, there had to be another knife somewhere. Zenos searched Mad’s backpack and sure enough there was a long butcher’s cleaver hidden in a side pouch. It was crude compared to Mad’s smaller knife, but it was easier to chop vegetables with a cleaver than the longsword in the inventory. Zenos took it and a piece of paper fell from the backpack pocket.
In the shadow of the night it was hard to tell what it was. [Well-Kept Photograph] read its item name after Zenos picked it up. He moved toward the fire, cleaver in one hand and photo in the other, and held the picture toward the fire for a better look.
There were five people, three men and two women, in the faintly-colored photograph. Two of them were black and three of them were white. Zenos could tell the white ones were Bastilhasians, perhaps by Anton’s own familiarity with their features. Of the two black men, the taller one standing in the back of the photo was certainly Mad.
“Who are these people?” Zenos muttered to himself.
The black man in the center of the photo was kneeling in steel plate armor. The beak of his plate helmet was lifted up and he showed off a beaming smile. There was a red and blue shield strapped to his arm, emblazoned with a heraldry of a black gryphon. A longsword was clutched in his hand.
The Bastilhasian man beside him wore glasses and his short blond hair was cut in a flat top. He was smirking in his brown triple-layered robe. One hand rested on his hip and the other held a wooden staff. Zenos could tell it was a quality wizard’s staff by its smooth, gnarled end.
One woman stood behind the knight and the other across from the wizard on the other side of the photograph. They looked similar, like they could have been sisters, but one wore a steel breastplate over her thin leather armor, and the other wore white robes, like the wizard. There was a bowstring threaded over the breastplate and a book in the robed woman’s hands. They both smiled for the picture.
And then, there was Mad, of course. He stood behind the women with his black hair tied back in a familiar ponytail. His face was so odd it was conspicuous, but it took Zenos a moment to pinpoint why.
“Mad’s not smiling,” he said.
Zenos turned the photograph and found words on the back, elegantly written in black ink.
“At least I didn’t get you a kitchen knife,” he read aloud. There were also signatures scrawled in different manners. “Fiona, Elizabeth, Leo, Khelero…?”
The fire crackled and Zenos heard foot falls. His head turned up and he saw a dark outline, visible by the light of the fire. Zenos was surrounded by small piles of raw vegetables and a pot of clear water was warming on the grill. The cleaver and picture were still in his hands. If it was an enemy, he would have been finished, but the stranger carried a walking staff.
“Oh, you’re back,” Zenos said.
Mad stepped into the light. “What are you doing?” he asked in flat confusion.
Zenos shook the cleaver around. “Getting dinner started,” he said and stood, handed the picture to Mad. “This fell out of your backpack.”
Mad took the photo. There was a small smile on his face, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. He moved to return it to the backpack pocket.
“Did you defeat any automatons today?” he asked.
Zenos blinked. “That’s what you want to say to me?”
Mad blinked back at Zenos. He appeared confused.
“Where were you?” Zenos asked.
Mad sighed. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and when he looked at Zenos again, he did it with a smile. “I have to prepare for the raid,” he said and took a seat on the stump beside Zenos. “Time keeps moving on, you know.”
Zenos crouched down and picked up a potato.
“Hand me that,” Mad said.
Zenos put the brown lump in his hand and took another for his own. They started peeling with their knives. “Madilhero?” Zenos said as he struggled to work the cleaver.
“Hm?”
“Who were the people in that picture?”
“Oh,” Mad uttered and paused. He had already stripped the potato and his eyes were set on the opaque white lump. Silence passed between them, where the only sounds were the crackling fire and whistling statues. Mad cut the potato into chunks in his lap.
“What do you think, Zenos,” he said and dropped the chunks into the boiling water. “About the guild leaving the island?”
“What do you mean what do I think?” Zenos asked. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Hand me another,” Mad said.
Zenos dropped a potato in Mad’s hand. For his part, he was still on potato one.
“Do you think it’s cruel?” Mad continued. “The guild knew the islanders couldn’t survive without their help. Normal humans can’t hope to fight a single monster… forget a dungeon ruler. When the guild left, they doomed this island.”
“They must have had a reason,” Zenos said.
“Money,” he answered. “That’s the reason. Bastilhas lost the Zenith War. In fact, they had been behind on their payments as late as two years ago. They surely had the money, but it wasn’t worth paying protection for an expensive lumber mill so far from the mainland. The guild gave us the order to pack up.”
“But you risk your lives in dungeons, don’t you?” Zenos asked. “Isn’t that why you get paid?”
Mad shook his head. “Dungeons are dangerous,” he said, “but the guild makes up for it in rewards earned from the dungeon itself. Monster crystals—like what you found in the automaton—chests of gold and jewels, artifacts, and skill books especially.”
Zenos cleaned the last of the skin from his potato and chopped it into chunks. He dropped them into the pot.
“Hand me another,” Mad said and Zenos placed a lump in his hand.
“If it’s not for the money,” Zenos wondered aloud. “Then is it for the respect?”
Mad glanced at him and nodded. “The guild cares more about respect than human lives. It’s important—I’ll grant—that the nations of the world don’t come to us for every little thing and expect us to solve their problems. But when the guild pulled out of Adheim, they left these people to die.”
“Isn’t that Bastilhas’ fault?” Zenos asked. “They knew what would happen if they didn’t pay.”
“I don’t care who’s at fault,” Mad said. “Whether the deaths of innocent people fall at the guild’s feet or Bastilhas? That’s an argument for politicians. Meanwhile, I’m an adventurer.” He flashed a serious glare at Zenos. “A year ago, I took matters into my own hands.”
Zenos’ eyes rounded. “A dungeon raid?”
Mad frowned. “The islanders needed another year to evacuate, but the dungeon break was close at hand,” he said. “Five gold ranks, five silver ranks, and five bronze ranks. I rounded them up from among those left-behinds that had stayed. We were understrength, but I couldn’t convince anyone else to come.”
“What happened?”
“I was the only survivor,” Mad said flatly.
Zenos said nothing. He sat with his potato in his hand, stared through Mad’s profile in the fire light. Mad’s eyes were red with tears.
“We succeeded,” he continued. “We gave the island another year, but the next raid would come. The guild packed up and left. Most of the civilians packed up and left.”
“You could have left,” Zenos said.
“I almost did.”
“I didn’t want to turn back,” Mad had said the day they left Adheim Village. “I was afraid I’d get on the boat until it pulled out from the bay.” Zenos recalled the long look in Mad’s eyes as he watched the sea.
Zenos piped up. “But, if there’s no one left on the island, then—”
“That hardly matters now,” Mad said. “There are a few civilians left that are too stubborn to leave, but… if I’m being honest with you, this isn’t about them.”
Zenos frowned and grabbed a carrot. He passed it to Mad before taking one of his own.
“If all of the adventurers in the village came to the raid, we might have made it through with fewer losses,” Mad said. “We might have lost no one. Do you blame them for not helping?”
“Yes,” Zenos said and chopped the orange carrot. Its pieces fell into his lap.
“Adventurers are just… one step better than normal humans,” Mad said. “They might have magic on their side, but they’re still people. They have their fears and their desires, their families and estates, people waiting for them back home. If you had to return home to your kids—to bring your wife a paycheck from the guild—would you still go to an unsanctioned dungeon raid?”
“Yes,” Zenos said again.
“Unsanctioned dungeon raids don’t pay out life insurance,” Mad said.
“I’d still go,” he said.
Mad chuckled and shook his head. Chunks of potato and carrot rolled into the stew. “Not big on hypotheticals, are you Zenos?”
“You’re not the only one, Mad,” Zenos said. He placed his carrots in the stew. “I know what it’s like to leave everyone behind; those people you relied on, and those who relied on you.” He made a fist in his lap. “That’s why I’d go to the dungeon.”
“I want to blame them,” Mad said. A tear streaked down his face. “I want to hate them. Those adventurers who abandoned the island—abandoned us. Those nobles that placed a few gold coins over their people’s lives. The guild, that cares more about appearances than their own damn actions!”
The pair sat in silence at the foot of the bubbling pot.
“But I can’t blame them,” Mad said quietly. “Everyone has their own reasons for the choices they make. I couldn’t even leave things as they were. I couldn’t leave this place behind. The one thing that I can hate—the reason for everyone’s pain—is that dungeon ruler.”
“We’re going to stop the dungeon break,” Zenos said.
“Our odds are hopeless,” Mad said. “I could barely do it with fifteen adventurers. Between us, we’re just walking to our deaths.”
Zenos said nothing and the conversation appeared to end.
Mad held out his hand. “Hand me a carrot.”
He placed a handful of monster crystals in Mad’s hand.
“It might be hopeless,” Zenos said. “But I’m not here to lay down and die. You’re going to fight, aren’t you?”
Tears streamed down Mad’s face. The crystals rattled in his hand and he clutched them tightly.
“Yes,” he wept.
